Pancakes Made with Love

Last year when I woke up to the smell of pancakes it was great. Now it isn’t as good as it used to be. I got out of bed this morning to find a stack of them on the table. A small pat of soy butter on top of them. Pumpkin jelly is in between the pancakes that were made. And a huge amount of my favorite syrup poured on top. Along with some scrambled vegan eggs with cheese melted throughout.

Some veggie breakfast sausage as well.

It’s my favorite breakfast that my mom made for me for years. Ever since I came out at twelve years old as a trans man. My mom made me that for the day that I came out. And ever since. She really knew how to make me feel so loved and appreciated. We would eat breakfast together like that. Sometimes mom and I would make breakfast together. Like holidays and such. Valentine’s day was our favorite holiday to make breakfast together. We would make heart shaped waffles with fake bacon. Some toast and she’d let me have coffee these days. As I got older, she allowed me to make dinner for both of us. Even if it wasn’t her favorite thing.

Like vegetarian chili dogs.

Then I would do the dishes. Even if I was the one that had made dinner or breakfast. I washed the dishes. Set them out to dry. I would put them away as soon as I was sure that they were dry. Do the laundry or get it started. As well as folding the stuff from the dryer. So, that mom wouldn’t be the only one doing chores. It was also so that I can learn a little independence.

Our system worked great. Even after I got a job and worked full time at the grocery store that was near the house. Everything was perfectly fine. But you know how things are when they’re perfectly fine. Something is bound to go wrong in the worst of ways. Christmas Eve was when things went wrong. I was in the breakroom for my fifteen-minute break. Reading a little story on my phone. I can’t remember what the story was. Some short story by some horror writer that I can’t remember right now. What I remember was my manager coming up to me. Asking me to go somewhere a little more private to talk. Soon as we did, she told me something that broke my heart into pieces.

My house was on fire.

I tried calling my mother repeatedly. Seven times if I’m remembering right. But she didn’t answer me at any time. It just went straight to voicemail no matter how many times I tried to talk to her. My panic clawed its way through my body as I paced the small room. Mind racing with possibilities. Maybe she had just dropped her phone on her way out of our house? That had to be it. That had to be the reason why she wasn’t picking up her phone at all.

She wasn’t dead. Mom wasn’t dead and she would answer her phone somehow. Or she’d come to the grocery store to pick me up. Tell me that we must move to another house because of one reason or another. Like there was an electrical fire or something.

That didn’t happen. My manager tried to touch me during this. Gently grab my shoulders to calm me down. But I didn’t want her to touch me. Or to grab me at all as I hyperventilated in my panic. Mom could be dead, and she was telling me to calm down. To not freak out. Who couldn’t freak out at the idea that their parent was dead? That their home was just ripped from them as well? At least I didn’t have a pet at the time. Otherwise, they would have died…died like..like mom had. When another co-worker drove me home. The house was engulfed in flames. I asked the firefighters if my mom had made it out. Screamed her name as I looked for her in the crowd of people in front of our house. But…but she hadn’t come out of the house.

When the firefighters got to her, she was lying in the middle of her bedroom. Her body hadn’t been terribly burned. Thankfully. What had gotten to her was the smoke from what they could tell. The fire started from our furnace. It caught fire and mom couldn’t get out in time. I had her cremated like she had requested. Our friends and family helped me get a new place. A small one. Where I have been living for a year alone. I had tried to make the breakfast mom made for me. But it doesn’t feel the same without her here with me. So, I stopped a week into doing it. The smell of vegan eggs made me sick. Way too sick to even eat it for the few months after her death. On the anniversary of my coming out, I had planned on making myself the breakfast. Only to wake up that morning to smell the cooking vegan sausage. And all the other smells. Finding it laying out in my normal spot at the breakfast table. Well normal for back when I lived with mom.

That was three months ago.

Ever since I’ve awoken to this. It should be comforting for me. That my mom is looking out for me in the afterlife. Yet. All I feel is this feeling of grief and guilt. My mom is showing her love for me despite being dead. Not resting in Heaven like she should be. Despite that I don’t want her to stop. Is this selfish of me? Yes. But I can’t let her go. And I don’t think I ever will be able to.